For much of my reading of The Pale King I was reminded of David Foster Wallace's life, not his death. He was in my head again, a wonderfully familiar, and comforting, feeling. I did not expect to experience joy such as I did.
Gabriel Brownstein's article for the Guardian, The shadow over David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, gives great insight into the evolution of his love for DFW's writing, I hope he enjoys The Pale King and that his expectations are not fulfilled as he predicts they might be:
Now the last novel is coming out: the unfinished manuscript that sat in the study while the body swung on the patio. If the book had been going well, would he have done that? Will anyone be able to read The Pale King without thinking of his death? I know I won't. This is my fear: that all the fun and fireworks of his prose will become pathologised. We'll all become Woodian gastroenterologists, trying to figure out how the writing related to Wallace personally, how it came out of him. God, would that stink.